10 reasons why 2010 was the best year ever in hip-hop: #7 Rappin’ all over the world…you know that’s right when the hottest rapper of the year was from Canada.
Everyone knows New York City was the birthplace of hip-hop. For years, the dominant s0und in the genre was from the city that never sleeps. In the late 80’s the West Coast, particularly LA, began to take over and it had a several year reign that corresponded with the fall of East Coast rap. After a brief resurgence of New York rap, the South took over and has dominated hip-hop for the last several years. However, in 2010, a curious thing happened. There was no dominant region. Instead, hits came from everywhere around the country and, as mentioned above, even from outside of it. Suddenly, the talent pool for hip-hop started to look like the Verizon map. And why is that good? Because the more diversity there is of the regions where hip-hop is produced, the more likely it is that the sounds of hip-hop will be increasingly diverse. The reason why people were saying hip-hop was dead a few years ago is because it was all starting to sound the same. It took breaths of fresh air like Drake, Nicki Minaj, J. Cole, KiD CuDi and even Eminem, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross (all from different places) to revive the culture. And now, it is stronger than ever before. Here’s a look at the diversity of areas that made up the hip-hop landscape in 2010 (for more reasons why 2010 is the best year ever in hip-hop, click here):
1. Drake – the hottest rapper of the year (Em had more sales of his album but Drake was on EVERYBODY’s record so he wins) and he hailed from Toronto:
http://www.vimeo.com/10879302
2. Rick Ross held down Miami:
http://www.vimeo.com/13285609
3. Wiz Khalifa repped his city of Pittsburgh and their NFL squad:
4. J. Cole built on the foundation that Little Brother laid to put North Carolina hip-hop on the map:
5. Big K.R.I.T. along with J. Cole further reinforced that Southern hip-hop was not limited to Atlanta and Miami:http://www.vimeo.com/18081166
6. KiD CuDi gave people a reason to care about Cleveland now that LeBron is gone:
7. B.o.B. created the most fresh and clean sounds to come out of the ATL since OutKast:
8. Eminem restored Detroit’s place in hip-hop:
9. Dr. Dre made the West Coast relevant once again with one exhale:
http://www.vimeo.com/16871959
10. And the lovely Nicki Minaj brought back the city that started it all:
http://www.vimeo.com/17558283